


Pink Drunk Love

by bmot



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 02:10:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9470741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmot/pseuds/bmot
Summary: Jonghyun and Jinki work in a host club in Japan. As the two only Korean employees, they've become close friends -- and when Jonghyun comes out to him, they end up adding some benefits to their relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (this is the same fic as on tumblr, i just split it into four chapters to make it easier to read)
> 
> there’s quite a bit of smut in this, and i really like the characters, so i hope y’all enjoy!! i worry the title is a bit too fluffy-sounding for how heavy this fic gets at points, but i like it too much and i couldn’t come up with anything better.
> 
> much thanks to fleckle, minsunshine, and my wonderful wife yurilikesgirls on tumblr for all their help with editing/idea-bouncing. i couldn’t have finished this fic without y’all, and i’m so sorry i forgot to credit y’all when i first posted! ;o; these people are the greatest.

“I’m not sure that I’d ever be able to be in a boy band, Ms. Yamamoto. I can’t dance in the slightest.”

Jinki grins when he hears Jonghyun’s words slip through the buzz of music and conversation. He shoots Jonghyun a look and a subtle nod, just enough to remind him of the time he’d sloppily pole danced in the empty subway car when Jinki escorted him home after too many drinks.

Jonghyun smiles back at him shyly, and Jinki spends a half second to return it before turning his attention back to his own client.

“That’s Jjong, isn’t it? The other Korean boy?” She asks, glancing between them, and Jinki can see the wheels turning behind her eyes. “Are you two close?”

“Yes, we’re…close,” he says, pretending to struggle around the words.

Every time he does, he gets extra tips.

His client takes a long drink, lips pursed around the glass of overpriced liquor as she thinks. “Can I buy him a drink too?”

“Ms. Amagi, I’m hurt. You’re going for another guy? Am I not enough?” Jinki teases, and she giggles coyly.

“I just thought you might like to visit with your friend, and it looks like his guest is leaving.”

Sure enough, Ms. Yamamato is slipping out of her booth. Jonghyun follows behind her shortly, and reaches for her coat before she can grab it. Her eyes widen — it’s only her second time visiting, after all — but she holds her arms out despite her surprise, allowing Jonghyun to pull the thick fleece garment on for her. He pats the collar once it’s securely over her shoulders. “Be careful out there. It’s late.”

Jinki nearly rolls his eyes, because he knows exactly what Jonghyun is going to say next as he leans in towards her ear, well enough that he mouths it along with him—

“Wear that perfume next time, if you can? I like it.”

Ms. Yamamoto turns pink all the way to her ears. When Jonghyun pulls back, she gives a full-body shiver and nods rapidly, then dashes to the exit.

Jinki reaches up to tap Jonghyun’s shoulder when the door closes behind her. “Ms. Amagi wanted to buy you a drink.”

“Ah, really?” he looks at her directly, raising a brow in his best balance of _bad boy_ and _polite young man_. Jinki already knows Jonghyun won’t refuse, because it’s near closing, and this is the closest thing to another client he’s going to get. “Thank you.”

Ms. Amagi smiles and moves to give him room on her other side, leaving Jonghyun directly opposite from Jinki in the circular booth. With a quick gesture from her to the clubs rotating server, his new drink is ordered and brought to him. Jonghyun is tipsy enough that he uses both hands to grab it, knocking his tie askew when he pulls it back too fast to set it on the table.

Jinki senses an opportunity. Ms. Amagi is a frequent client of the host bar, and after his few months of employment, Jinki knows the ins-and-outs of her wants.

“Jonghyun,” he says, voice dipping low. He gestures to his neck and lifts his chin. “Your tie.”

Jonghyun is too busy entertaining Ms. Amagi’s fussing over his drunkenness and apologizing for ordering another drink for him, but that’s fine. It makes what he’s going to do seem more natural.

With an exaggerated sigh, Jinki sits up just enough to reach across the table. Jonghyun’s lashes flutter as Jinki’s fingers flit expertly about his neck, straightening the tie before tucking it back in the tight vest of their uniform.

Ms. Amagi watches his hands intently, her own drink draining twice as fast.

And that’s how they make double their usual that night.

“I love Ms. Amagi, you know. She always pretends to have counted wrong to leave a bit extra.”  Jinki whistles the Korean song they’d been practicing before opening as he counts the cash she’d left.  “Or at least, I _hope_ she counts wrong on purpose. I know she does accounting for her family’s business, and their numbers might be hurting if this is an accident…”

Jonghyun laughs and hangs his vest on the hook besides his locker. “I’m surprised you’re actually concerned, considering how hard you work to weasel money out of her.”

“If her pockets dry up, mine get hit too.” Jinki waves his five-thousand yen bill under Jonghyun’s nose. “But anyway, you want to grab something to eat with this? I think that ramen place a stop before ours is open late.”

“No thanks.” Jonghyun shrugs on his winter coat. “You know I do my best reading at night, and I have some analysis to do. I’m tracing Soseki’s construction of femininity through the maidservant Kiyo in Botchan, and my annotations are spotty.”

“Sometimes I think you’re speaking a third language I’ve never heard of,” Jinki says. “And it’s still winter break. Why are you doing schoolwork?”

“I’m thinking of doing something related to that for my thesis, but I need to see if there’s enough material for it.”

“You don’t even _need_ a thesis yet.” Jinki protests, as if this isn’t a conversation they have every time schoolwork comes up. “You’re still a few semesters away from that.”

“I know, but it’s best to start early,” Jonghyun says. “Plus, it’s fun. Finding the connections between older works and the construction of society today—”

Jinki cuts Jonghyun off by pushing his scarf against his mouth. “Enough. Ms. Konishi was here today, and I’m pretty buzzed.”

Jonghyun swipes his hand away, lips coming free to reveal a teasing smile. “So I’ll be helping you home for a change?”

“As if. I can still walk straight, trust me.” Jinki says. He proves his point by following a line of the patterned tile to the back exit and opens it, letting in a cold breeze and a wisp of flurries that sends Jonghyun huffing out the door.

“Shit, it’s freezing. We should hurry, I don’t want to wait for the last train if we miss this one.” He clenches his teeth against a shiver, yanking a beanie out of his pocket to tug it over his white hair and cold-nipped ears.

With a grin, Jinki reaches out and pulls it even further down to cover his eyes, then dashes out of the alley towards the street.

“Okay, you’re definitely drunk!” Jonghyun shouts after him, and Jinki laughs at the sound of Jonghyun’s feet hitting the pavement as he jogs to catch up. After a savage pinch to Jinki’s neck, he slows to a walk and tucks his hands into his pockets, breath hitting the air in a loud sigh. “I was worried you were going to run into traffic for a moment. Why does drunk you like to run so much?”

“It’s not running, it’s competition,” Jinki corrects. He walks beside Jonghyun as they head to the nearby subway stop.  “Whether it’s video games, or darts, or pool, or wrestling—”

“Arm wrestling?” Jonghyun laughs, the breadth of his own grin showing his own tipsiness. “I think I could beat you at that, actually.”

“No, not arm wrestling.” Jinki corrects, then pauses. “Though I’d try arm wrestling, if you want to.”

“Of course I want to,” Jonghyun says. Their conversation stops for the rumbling approach and screeching stop of the subway car, only resuming once the doors open. “I have to beat you at something.”

“Next time, then.” Jinki bumps his shoulder against Jonghyun’s. “Loser has to buy dinner.”

***

Jinki taps the top of his mic. The pads of his fingers echo over the host club’s speaker system with a slight bit of static, and Jinki does it again, this time on the left side of the device to create a different sound.

Jonghyun rolls his eyes. When Jinki just grins at him and taps it harder, making the obnoxiously catchy beat of the song they were rehearsing, Jonghyun swats at his hand. “Stop that. They’ll take it out of our tips if we break these.“

“We’ll make up for it quick, I’m sure,” Jinki says. “Women can’t resist our voices.”

Jonghyun snorts, but doesn’t argue with that. He reshuffles the lyric sheets he’d printed earlier that evening and makes one last marking before passing it over to Jinki. “Try and sound a little younger with this line. It’s about an older woman, so naturally we should be speaking as if this is our first love.’

Scrunching his nose, Jinki absorbs the markings, once again finding himself wondering how he managed to get a job that involved looking pretty and singing. “You take this so seriously, I’d think you’re a professional.”

“I had a time where I wanted to become involved in the music industry, before I realized I enjoyed prose more than poetry, since they tend to deal with social issues and historical events with more nuance. Lyrics especially always lean more towards poetic themes that anyone can relate to, the constant and universal things in life like love and loss —”

“That’s nice,” Jinki interrupts, then stands to head back over to the stage. “I can’t wait for university to start up again so you have someone to talk about this intellectual stuff with other than me.”

Jonghyun scowls at him, muttering something about heartless business students under his breath before returning to the karaoke machine. “Alright, we’re going to give this song another go. We open in an hour, so we need to have it perfected by then.”

***

Halfway into his shift, Jinki knows he’s going to be dragging Jonghyun home.

Jonghyun’s table is busy, booth filled on both sides with a party of giggling young girls that inundate him with questions about his favorite food and his favorite band and his favorite manga as they wave for drink after drink to press into his hands.

Normally, Jonghyun would make a subtle gesture at the server to water them down, but Jinki hasn’t seen his hands leave his glass all night.

(Except to push back his hair, or subtly fix one of the girls’, but that was a standard for his act.)

A flush dots his cheeks, and Jinki keeps an eye on it as he feigns interest in the rambling musings of his own client for the night, checking every few minutes out the corner of his eye to make sure he’s not getting drunk enough to get in trouble with their boss. Though they’re encouraged to drink everything given to them, getting drunk to the point where customers could notice is discouraged.

He means to take some of the heat off him by joining Jonghyun at his booth, but Ms. Amagi slips in at the last hour before closing, and she’s a regular enough to notice anything less than his fullest attention. Pushing aside his worries, he forces out a full smile for her and directs the conversation to her favorite topics (fashion and wrestling, in that order) to make the time pass quickly. He does his best not to seem hurried when it’s finally time to close for the night, but he barely manages his usual bow as he escorts Ms. Amagi from his booth to the door.

The moment he closes it behind her, Jinki returns to Jonghyun’s booth. His neck is flushed all the way up to his jaw, and his eyes are an unfocused blur that seem to do little to help him figure out the difference between the bench and table as he tries to escape from the circular booth.

Jinki watches him struggle, worry subsiding for amusement until Jonghyun reaches the edge of the seat and he realizes Jonghyun is on a fast track to face planting against the tile. Grasping him quickly, he yanks him up by the arm and grasps his waist in his other hand to steady him. “Slow down, Jonghyun. I’ll take you home. I don’t think walking is a good idea for you tonight.”

“I’m fine,” Jonghyun says, an edge of stubbornness to his voice that nearly makes Jinki let go. “Just let me get my things.”

Jinki helps Jonghyun along to his locker and helps him out of his vest. Jonghyun’s silence during the whole process is disconcerting, and he hurries to get them out the door, hoping Jonghyun might be more talkative away from the other staff.

It shouldn’t make a difference if anyone is there or not, since they usually speak Korean to each other, but he still hopes. He wants to believe that Jonghyun will make idle talk once they’re alone in the streets, but he knows he’s wrong when he drags Jonghyun past the closing bookstore near the subway stop without hearing a single complaint about how the musty smell of books was going to be lost to the next generation because of those damn e-readers.

“You’re drunk, and you haven’t said a single thing about literature,” Jinki says. “What’s wrong?”

Jonghyun stares at him blankly for a second, then laughs, dry and bitter. “You know me too well.”

“I do,” Jinki says. He uses the momentary fall of Jonghyun’s defenses to pull one of his arms over his shoulder, steadying him as they board the subway. “So tell me what’s up.”

“My dad won’t message me anymore, even though I message him first,” Jonghyun complains, hands waving wildly after Jinki pushes him into a seat. “He’s a huge hypocritical asshole. Married my mom when she was so young, then acts like he can judge _me_.”

“He’s a jerk,” Jinki agrees. He’s never met Jonghyun’s dad, and never heard the specifics, but the fact that he’s a common complaint of his drunken friend is enough for him to slot the man easily into the bastard category.

“Yeah, he is!” Jonghyun agrees, eyes burning with enthusiasm and hate for a moment before the alcohol swings him the other way, and his eyes brim with tears. Dabbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand, he tucks himself against Jinki’s shoulder with a sniffle.

“I thought,” he hiccups, elbow bumping against Jinki’s, “that I wouldn’t care, since I barely consider him my _dad_ anymore.” Another hiccup. “Haven’t even seen him in years. But somehow—” another pause, this one painful. “It hurts, still. That he doesn’t accept me.”

“It’s not your fault.” Jinki rubs Jonghyun’s shoulder, unsure what to say. He’s never been good at this.

Jonghyun sighs, defeated, and slumps further on Jinki’s shoulder. “Still hurts, though.”

“It’s natural it hurts. Parents are supposed to accept everything about us. Unless you have a secret life of crime or something, I can’t even imagine anything a parent wouldn’t accept.”

It’s meant to be a platitude, like most of the things he says when Jonghyun is this level of drunk, but it seems to hit a nerve. Jonghyun’s fingers are curled in his mittens. “Yeah?”

“Mm.”

“You can’t think of _anything_ you wouldn’t accept in your kid, other than things that are illegal?” Jonghyun asks, sitting up, and his eyes look desperate.

“I, uh—” Jinki stares back at him, the intensity in Jonghyun’s eyes making him question his own words. He swallows. “No, I can’t think of anything.”

Jonghyun nods, resolving himself to something — Jinki still has no idea what — then inhales, big and slow, looking much more sober after a pause. “I’m gay.”

Jinki blinks.

The subway car keeps racing, the rattle of it against the metal rails covering the silence between them.

Somehow, he hadn’t expected that. He’d linked Jonghyun’s story to his complaints about his dad not accepting his love of music, or his love of literature, his insistence that Jonghyun needed to be more manly, somehow, as if that mattered at all.

“It’s okay, Jonghyun,” Jinki says, when he realizes the silence is pressing on Jonghyun. “I won’t judge you for that.”

“We’re still friends?”

“Yeah,” Jinki says, already sure of the answer though he’s never dealt with this situation before. He adds that onto the list of things Jonghyun is — friend, coworker, semi-classmate.

First gay friend. That he knows of, anyway.

The nerves in Jinki’s shoulder fizzle when Jonghyun leans back against it, skin prickling with a new consciousness of the contact. It’s hardly the first time they’ve drunkenly rested against each other, but it feels…different, now. He looks down, trying to place why — because he isn’t judging, so there must be some scratch of wool or some bunch of fabric — only to find a new buzz in his chest when he sees the soft and grateful smile on Jonghyun’s lips.

 


	2. Chapter 2

In the break room of the host club, the empty container from Jinki’s pre-work takeout sits in front of him. He’d eaten in a rush, thinking Jonghyun would want to talk after his drunken confession, but apparently he’d been wrong.

If Jonghyun remembers the exchange, he doesn’t show it. Chopsticks in one hand and phone in the other, he picks slowly through his meal, not even looking up when Jinki slides a piece of gum towards him for when he’s done.

Jinki fidgets. He’s certain Jonghyun remembers — in all the times Jonghyun has gotten drunk, he’s never _forgotten_ anything, no matter how embarrassing — and he wouldn’t think he’d want to pretend it never happened.

At least, Jinki hopes he wouldn’t. He has too many questions to let the quiet sit.

“How’d you know?”

Jonghyun tilts his head at him, and his chopsticks poke at corner of his lips. “Hm?”

“That you’re—” he trails off. It still feels forbidden to say, so he leans in and whispers, after making sure they’re alone. “…Gay.”

To his surprise, Jonghyun just snorts, as if Jinki were asking something obvious. “Same way you know you like girls. I’m attracted to them. Like looking at them. Find them handsome. Think about kissing them.”

Jinki leans back and frowns. That seems too simple, too common. He likes looking at the other hosts. Sometimes he notices, when they get close, that their lips are full or wet or red from wine.

Most of them look kissable, but that’s easy to say. Doesn’t mean anything. They’re paid to be handsome, after all.

“You’re sure you’re okay with it?” Jonghyun interrupts their silence, eyes down on the remaining noodles in his box as he twists them around.

“I’m sure,” Jinki says. “I’ve just never thought about it much. And I want to understand, you know?”

That makes Jonghyun smile. “Yeah.” He slurps a long noodle into his mouth. “Well, you can ask me anything. I trust you have good intentions.”

“Anything, really?” Jinki leans forward. A tingle of disbelief runs from his chest to his stomach, as if the offer were a gift he’d never even realized he’d wanted. Though he hasn’t yet thought of a question, he’s already eager for every single answer.

Maybe it’s knowing Jonghyun trusts him that much, or the newness of it, but Jonghyun’s casual nod has a significance to it he can’t place.

***

He doesn’t remember the verbal blank check he’d been given until he gets home.

Then, it’s like a dam breaks, and his mind travels to everything it’d been too shy to consider when Jonghyun was right in front him. He tries cleaning his room to get rid of the thoughts, and only finds himself wondering more when he stumbles over a controller cord and falls in front of an open magazine listing the most popular male couples of shoujo readers — research, really, for his customers — and finds himself sucked into reading it again.

He’d always thought of it as something for girls, but now he’s curious. Does Jonghyun read that stuff?

He has to wonder. And he has to ask, the next time Jonghyun falls in step with him on the way to the subway station.

“Do you read those yaoi comics?”

Jonghyun laughs and admits he does, when he’s desperate for something to read that isn’t about a man and a woman.

That makes something click. It should have, before — because Jonghyun wouldn’t be _gay_ unless he were interested in something that involved men with other men — but the simple realization brings with it a dozen different questions. And Jonghyun had given him an invitation, so he can’t help that more and more questions come out of his mouth every time they meet.

Do boys kiss differently? How do you ask someone out, if you can’t just tell people you’re gay? Does it feel weird to touch a dick other than your own, or is it just like touching yourself?

Jonghyun answers the first with a fond smile, “Don’t know, never kissed a girl,” and the second with a bitter one. “It’s hard to meet guys, yeah, why else would you think I’m single?”

And when Jinki finds the confidence to ask the last question, despite being half sure it would only make Jonghyun frown or tell him off, all he gets is a laugh: a good weird, the first time, and it feels too good to remember to touch your own.

Jinki carries that answer home with him, into the warm shower he needs to wash away the lingering scent of the overpriced perfume that Ms. Kashiwagi had been wearing.

He presses his forehead against the tile, looking down, mind on the cutely baffled look Jonghyun had given him when he’d asked his first question.

He still doesn’t think it was a stupid question, considering — he uses his left hand and wraps his fingers around himself, trying to imagine it were another hand — and finds himself barely excited by the thought of a different palm. Closing his eyes, he lets go to run a finger along himself, as if it isn’t his own cock he’s trying to explore and instead he’s touching someone else’s — and feels himself throb.  

His hips jerk forward. He twists his hand into the motion, speeding up briefly then slowing down to squeeze. A shiver makes his feet skid across the shower floor, and he scrambles his free hand against the wall, regaining his balance to thrust into his tightened fist.

Would other men like that as much as he does? Keeping their hand mostly still to buck into it, like he does into his own?

He groans, too caught up in the thought of someone fucking his hand to care when the ridges of the tile scrape against his skin. The steam from the shower traps hot air in his lungs, making it harder to breathe, and he pants openly to catch up on the oxygen he needs.

A familiar tension curls in his stomach, and it’s the approach of his own release that reminds him he could make someone come, make their cock twitch and harden the same way his does just before an orgasm — then their come would be on his fingers, on his stomach, maybe even on his chest —

He swears, head smacking the wall as he comes, mind dashing from faceless image to imagined sensation to the thought that _Jonghyun has probably experienced all of that_ as he slows down his hand to try and draw out the pleasure.

“Shit.” He slowly extracts himself from his spot braced against the tile. The water’s turned lukewarm, and his breathing is still uneven when he unhooks the shower head and rinses his come off of the wall in a daze, thoughts still lingering on everything he’d fantasized about.

He has a dozen more questions for Jonghyun now.

***

The next time he works up the courage to ask something, they’re in the empty back of a subway car — _can you tell when someone’s about to come in you?_ — and Jonghyun snorts. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re interested in trying it, with all the questions you’re asking.”

Jinki clutches the support rail, ramrod stiff. He only realizes that he’s supposed to be fumbling for some kind of denial when Jonghyun stares at him, wide-eyed.

“I—um.”

“Oh.” Jonghyun rubs his nose. “Wow.”

Heat rises in Jinki’s cheeks. The advertisements trailing by the window are a steady source of distraction, and he finds refuge in them then, trying to test himself with the kanji as his thoughts keep dragging back to the tips of Jonghyun’s fingers.

When the silence stretches on too long, Jinki clears his throat. “Is it weird to wonder?”

“No,” Jonghyun says, quickly, like he’d been waiting for a chance. “I mean — every one of us starts somewhere.”

_Us._

That’s a new thing to take in. Jinki’s heart races.

The subway car finally pulls to a screeching stop. Jonghyun gets off ahead of him, and Jinki follows, for once wishing that Jonghyun would think aloud so he could know what’s going on his head.

A block passes, still in silence, though they’re side-by-side now, and Jinki starts to worry. He glances over at Jonghyun, wondering what happened to his usual easy-to-read expressions. Wonders if Jonghyun thought he had been hitting on him, earlier, with all the questions he’d been asking.

And wonders if he _had_ been, somehow, without realizing it.

He looks at Jonghyun again, now afraid the straight line of his lips is disapproval, and finds himself lingering. Streetlights do little to illuminate Jonghyun’s features, but Jinki knows them well enough to fill in the gaps. They stop at the corner of a busy street, and his bleached hair turns pink from the garish neon sign of the nearby love hotel.

Jinki’s palms sweat. His mind repeats what Jonghyun said earlier, in bits and pieces — _I’m starting to think you’re interested_ — and he realizes what Jonghyun might’ve been offering.

The crosswalk light turns green, and they step into the street.

The garish pink of the neon sign tempts him from the corner of his vision, but it’s Jonghyun that stops at it.

“You know…there’s…this here.” He gestures vaguely. “If you’re curious.”

They both have too many roommates. And the thought of going to bed alone, with this on his mind? It’d be another sleepless night in the dark as he wonders how to fit this new _thing_ into his typical fantasies without breaking and rebuilding himself.

He nods. Jonghyun’s breath clouds the air in front of him when he gives a nervous smile.

Jinki lets Jonghyun lead him in. He’s only been to a love hotel once, after a lucky night of karaoke. The older businesswomen he goes home with usually prefer their own small apartments.

Jonghyun moves quickly, pushing buttons and sliding his card. Before Jinki blinks, there’s a condom packet and a bottle in his gloved hand, and the machine is spitting out a keycard for a room. A point of Jonghyun’s finger to a hall, and he’s following him down the poorly-carpeted floors, not even sure which room they’ll be stopping at.

Is he really going to do this? Let Jonghyun—ask Jonghyun to—

The door shuts behind him, and Jonghyun turns to him, still bundled up to the neck in his winter coat.

He reaches for his scarf, and Jinki imitates the motion on himself, following each step like he’s never undressed himself before until they’re both down to the white dress shirts of their uniform.

The nervousness in his stomach bubbles up in a laugh, and Jonghyun joins him as he moves closer.

“What?” Jonghyun asks, close enough that Jinki can smell the last sweet drink his client had ordered him that night. “Did you think we were just going to jump right to me fucking you?”

“I—” Jinki flusters, eyes down on Jonghyun’s mouth as he tries to process everything. Was he going to be on that end of things?

Not that it matters, but—

The thought ends when Jonghyun’s lips meet his. He freezes for a moment, waiting for guidance, figuring he must be clueless because he’s never kissed a boy before. But the soft press of Jonghyun’s lips melts him, and he’s quickly kissing back with a sharp want and humming an encouraging moan into Jonghyun’s mouth.

Fuck, it isn’t different. It isn’t any different, except in the way kissing anyone is different from the last, and Jonghyun is a good kisser.

He shivers, opening his mouth wider, enjoying the push of Jonghyun’s tongue past his lips. A hand rests at the back of his neck before it slips up and tugs at his hair just as a knee slips between his legs.

His legs fall open, and he dizzily registers a harsh nip against his jaw when their bodies press fully together. Jonghyun pushes his hips forward, and Jinki does the same, too absorbed in trying to get some kind of friction to realize what he’s feeling until the zipper of Jonghyun’s jeans nearly catches on a seam.

Jonghyun is hard. Against him. On his thigh.

Jinki stifles a moan against Jonghyun’s neck. His hands crawl over Jonghyun’s sides and hips as he pushes backwards, stopping just before he reaches the front of his pants — he already wants to —

The back of his knees bump against a mattress, and he falls backwards, eyes wide on Jonghyun as he reorients himself to the world outside of Jonghyun’s body. Jonghyun raises a brow at him and starts to unbutton his own shirt, and Jinki spends a half-beat of his heart gaping dumbly at the mole between his collarbones and the hint of pecs before rushing to get out of his own clothes.

He tosses his pants aside and turns his attention back to Jonghyun, mind going blank when he sees nothing but tan skin and shadows. He swallows, unsure where to look. He’d thought undressing meant going down to their boxers, but Jonghyun is already nude.

Before even think about taking off his own to make things even, Jonghyun is straddling his thigh. His hand slips down between them, and Jinki has no time to enjoy the skim of Jonghyun’s knuckles over his chest and stomach before he’s gripped through his boxers.

“Fuck.” Jinki clenches his teeth and groans.  He wants to do something himself, but he’s already too absorbed in how amazing Jonghyun’s palm feels to care about how badly he wants to touch. It only takes a slight push, and he’s moving back on the mattress, giving more room for Jonghyun to rest over him.  

Jonghyun’s fingers move away from the slit of his boxers and up through a leg, and Jinki’s face heats as he realizes what this is leading towards. The idea is exciting, but Jinki still stiffens, unsure how to show he wants this or how he feels about the possibility that it might hurt.

The hesitation makes Jonghyun stop. “I forgot you’ve probably never…” he trails off, blinking hard when he looks down at Jinki. “Would you rather—”

“No — I mean, otherwise, would it be that different than what I’m used to?” Jinki tries at a grin when he cuts him off, reaching for logic to hide the fact that he really, really wants to feel Jonghyun inside him.

Jonghyun stares him for a moment longer, then nods, accepting it without question. While Jinki strips out of his boxers, Jonghyun grabs the bottle of lube he’d purchased earlier from the bedside. Jinki lays on his back, and with some skillful one-handed motion, Jonghyun has liquid pooling out of the bottle and onto the hand he slips back under Jinki’s thigh.

The cold makes Jinki jolt, but he forces his eyes to close and relaxes as best he can manage when there’s slick fingers resting against him. He breathes out at the first press, and it slips in easier than he expected. He’s grateful that Jonghyun doesn’t ask how it feels, only presses deeper and starts to stretch him, because he can’t describe it — it’s good, but new, and that makes it slightly strange no matter how much the in-and-out push is bringing a pleasured flush to his chest.

Then Jonghyun’s fingers curve, and all he sees is white. His eyes squeeze shut, and he gasps. The dim lamps by the bed blink at the corner of his vision, and he clutches the sheets, vision unfocusing again as he tries to press down for more.

He catches a glimpse of a confident smile, and his heart races, pulse thrumming with the urge for more.

“Am I going too fast?” Jonghyun asks.

Jinki shakes his head quickly. Jonghyun stopping to ask is slowing him down and the last thing he wants is that, when the curl of his fingers feels so good.

He spreads his legs wider in encouragement , and Jonghyun fumbles with his free hand along the sheets until the packet is back in his hands. He tears it open with twist of his fingers, rolling it on and pinching the tip with an expertise that makes Jinki prop on his elbows to watch.

The fact that he’s staring at a cock hits him, and he feels dizzy — somehow, looking is harder to take in than doing or thinking — and his mind travels back to the implication of Jonghyun’s ease with every step, at all the nights and people and stories that might have built up to _this_.

How many were there?

He’d never thought Jonghyun was a virgin — he’s bookish, but not naive — but somehow he’d never thought of him like this. Naked on his knees above someone, lips wet and muscles firm and cock hard and obvious even if he tries not to look.

The room sharpens around him, as raw and vivid as a heavy dream. Every shadow on Jonghyun’s face seems to darken as he tilts Jinki back, and Jinki meets his eyes with a hard swallow when he feels the back of his head hit the pillow.

Between them, Jonghyun reaches down, and Jinki feels the slip of something blunt and wet against the underside of his thigh. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

Jonghyun’s breath heats against his neck when he leans down. “Okay.”

Jinki has a moment to process the firm heat against him before he feels himself opening around it. He bites his lip, biting back a gasp as his arms loop instinctively around Jonghyun. His fingers arch and tighten against Jonghyun’s shoulders, bending more and more with every inch that enters him until his fists are resting curled against his bare back.

The low and strangled huff that Jonghyun lets out against his neck when he bottoms out heats over his skin. He has no time to process how much he likes it before there’s movement, and Jonghyun is moving, making Jinki shake with the slow drag of his cock back out to the tip.

Though Jinki knows it’s coming, the push back in still takes him off guard, and he moans long and loud at the sensation of being stretched open again. The muscles of Jonghyun’s back shift under his palms, and he scratches at them with the ends of his nails, already knowing and needing to convey how much he needs more.

Jonghyun seems to get the meaning. He rises up on his elbows, a soft smirk on his lips as he bends Jinki’s legs further back before jerking his hips forward.

Jinki nearly screams.

There’s a short pause as Jonghyun draws back and freezes, unsure if it’s a good sound, but Jinki leaves him no room to wonder when he hooks his ankles around Jonghyun and tries to tug him back in. A pleasure-given flash of white over his vision again, and he has a half-thought of wonder at how he’s never tried this before his mind is completely gone and there’s only Jonghyun’s body above him and the rocking of the cheap bed beneath him.

It doesn’t take long for him to realize he might come like this. The rhythm of Jonghyun’s hips is too steady, and he feels himself pushed closer and closer to release with each thrust. He digs his heels into Jonghyun’s back and holds his breath, half wanting to fight it and tell Jonghyun to slow down to make this last, but then a Jonghyun slips a hand between them and grips his cock and he’s _gone_.

His hips jolt up, and he throbs into Jonghyun’s hand, coming after only a few short strokes. Every nerve inside him feels raw, but it’s good, and each stuttered push of Jonghyun into him makes him moan and clench and scramble for some way to make the world feel steady around him.

With a stilted breath, Jonghyun suddenly presses flush against him and tenses. A distant part of Jinki’s mind recognizes that he’s coming, but he’s too dazed to even tell if Jonghyun is twitching inside him or if the movement he feels is just his body tracing the last moments of bliss.

Jinki stares at the ceiling when Jonghyun withdraws, entirely dazed.

He can’t believe he just did that.

“We probably only have an hour left. I only had the money for two hours.” Jonghyun’s voice cuts through the silence. He’s sitting, legs draped over the side and back to him, and for a long moment, Jinki wonders if he did something wrong.

When Jonghyun says nothing further, Jinki tries to look at him. Sitting up is a struggle, and Jinki takes it slowly, wincing at the strain in his thighs. “Do we need to leave soon?

“I remember you said you had books to buy still. I don’t want to keep you long.”

Something sinks in Jinki’s chest. “Ah, yeah. I guess I do.”

Jonghyun looks back at him, and Jinki quickly hides whatever disappointment he has at the quick shift from fucking to talking — or whatever this is — behind a smile. That seems to be enough reassurement for Jonghyun that things are alright, because he grabs his clothes and begins dressing.

Jinki follows him blindly, stumbling into his own boxers and pants before pulling on his shirt.

After they return the key to the room and leave, he expects Jonghyun to say something — at least to ask what Jinki thinks now that he’s done it, or if he regrets it — but the only sound Jonghyun makes the whole walk is a small huff when they reach the crosswalk just as it turns red.

Jinki can’t help but feel…oddly empty. Something just shy of disappointed. Not with the sex — shit, he’d liked that — but with the aftermath. In the short time between when Jonghyun had raised the possibility and it had happened, he’d imagined it being different after. That he wouldn’t be the only one affected by it.

But it makes sense that Jonghyun isn’t affected as much. He’s done this before.

Jonghyun stops at the usual corner where they part. The streetlamp that flickers its light against his face is the same one as always, but Jonghyun looks different under it now. He smiles, and it looks as forced as Jinki’s own. “See you later, Jinki.”

Jinki returns it, if only to keep Jonghyun from worrying. “Later.”


	3. Chapter 3

The coffee shop is busier than usual, buzzing with chatter about festivals and movies and all sorts of things that don’t involve the damned weeks-worth of homework Jinki has in front him. University, as always, had to start at the worst of times.

With a long sigh, Jinki tosses aside his pencil and stretches over his book. He can feel a glare lingering on him until he straightens up, and he gives its owner a mock salute before picking his pencil back up and returning to his work.

Jonghyun is Jinki’s conscience, when it comes to studying.

Apparently, having sex with him didn’t change that.

Once assured that Jinki is back at his work, Jonghyun sticks his nose back in his book and scribbles another few lines of notes. Jinki watches him from the corner of his eye, observing the smooth movements that create a mix of hangul, kanji, and hiragana. Every character’s stroke is matched by a twitch of Jonghyun’s lips, as if he’s internally mouthing out the sound, and Jinki realizes he actually _is_ when he hears Jonghyun mumble a Japanese name.

“You going to do any of your homework at all, or just zone out all night?” Jonghyun asks, somehow aware of the slip in JInki’s focus even without looking away from his work.

Jinki sighs, casting his eyes obediently down at his mock business plan. “I’m going to work.”

Jonghyun’s lips twitch up in approval, but Jinki knows he doesn’t deserve it. His mind is still elsewhere.

He doesn’t get how Jonghyun can concentrate, when what happened the last time they saw each other at night is still sitting between them.

The same hand Jonghyun is using to write had rested on his hips and twisted in his hair. Jinki knows what it feels like now, to have those fingers inside him. He can’t really think of anything else when he looks at them.

But he doesn’t know if Jonghyun is thinking about it at all, because he hasn’t said a word about it. He seems entirely unaffected, as if he _weren’t_ responsible for awakening something in Jinki he still can’t put into words.

He watches Jonghyun carefully, trying to read his wants and desires. If he were a girl — or better yet, a customer at the host cafe — this might be easier. There are always little tells of the kind of man a customer wants, and if he can guess those well enough to get tips, there might be a way to get Jonghyun to take him to the love hotel again.

He hopes there is, anyway — because he already knows he wants it.

***

Only the barest warmth of sunlight is left, but the reddish glow it casts is enough to make the love hotel on the way to the subway stop seem entirely unthreatening the next time they pass it on the way to the host club. Without even a passing glance, Jonghyun continues their conversation about video games, and Jinki manages to walk by it with only a slight stutter in his steps.

Work is normal. Blessedly normal, or cursedly normal, Jinki isn’t sure. All he knows is that he never paid so much attention to the tilted grin Jonghyun gives every girl that visits his booth, and now he understands why customers empty their purses just to sit across from him and chat.

And on the way home, the hotel glows pink again, inviting fantasies of a _next time_ and dragging Jinki’s thoughts back to that night.

When they cross the street and near its doorway, their steps have both slowed.

Jinki looks up through his lashes at Jonghyun, trying to read the stiffness in his shoulders — is it because he wants it again, or the awkwardness of wanting to forget?  Jonghyun is wearing the same jacket as he did that night, and it’s hard not to remember how he had taken it off and draped it over a chair before turning and kissing him.

And just like the last time, Jonghyun’s the one to stop.

Jinki’s lips crack against the dry air when he opens his mouth to speak. He reaches absently for his chapstick before realizing that might show something — don’t girls do that before kissing? — and realizes he’s already thinking of it.

Jonghyun tilts his head to the dimly-lit entrance. “You want to?”

Jinki stares at him, hesitating for a moment before nodding. As well as he knows Jonghyun, he doesn’t know what to make of his seeming indifference.

A brief widening of Jonghyun’s eyes tells Jinki that’s not the answer he expected, but it’s gone as soon as Jonghyun opens the door and motions for him to enter. Jonghyun pays — for three hours, this time — and then they’re in a rented room again. He’s barely out of his jacket when Jonghyun steps towards him.

Jinki’s not sure if the chapstick gave him the idea, or if Jonghyun was already thinking of it, but when he feels a thumb brush against the corner of his mouth as Jonghyun pulls away, he _knows_.

A sharp throb of heat sparks in him, sending his hands to Jonghyun’s belt. “Can I try…?”

Jonghyun nods tightly, stepping backwards until Jinki has enough room to slip onto his knees.

The hand that falls onto the back of his head is warm, and the sureness of it makes it easy to forget that he’s never done this before.

***

Though the girls had said they were graduates, the emblem of their former high school still stood out on their bag. It caught Jinki’s attention the moment they stepped into the host club, and he’d drawn them to his table with a tilt of his head and a smile wide enough to be seen from the door.

He always does his best — but the equation in his mind — graduation celebration, private school, _money_ — has him turning up his charm.

By the time their drinks are served, he has them laughing at his jokes and waiting expectantly for more. Even the girl with a severe stare and straight-cut bangs who had first looked around the host club with disdain wears a smile when she asks her first question of the night. “Did you learn Japanese just to tell puns, Jinki?”

“I have to say, that is a major reason.” Jinki sips at his drink and grins. “The lovely women I’ve met here are also a bonus.”

A crash from the other end of the club interrupts their giggles. The tray their waiter had been carrying is on the ground, and Jonghyun is near him, shell-shocked as his face drips with a mix of foam and pink juice from whatever had been on the tray.

Jinki slides out from his seat with a hurried _excuse me_ to the two girls across from him and strides over to Jonghyun, a victorious grin already stretching his lips.

High school girls love this kind of thing.

He touches Jonghyun’s shoulder lightly, frowning in concern. “Are you alright?”

Jonghyun blinks at him, then snaps out of it to grimace down at his clothes. “I’m fine. My shirt isn’t, though.”

“Let me help,” Jinki offers, pulling the handkerchief of their uniform out of his pocket and holding Jonghyun by the chin before he can think to protest. With the white cloth, he dabs at his jaw, then runs it in wide strokes to ensure he wipes away every stray bit of foam and drink on him.

Someone hands a clean cloth to him, and he swipes it under Jonghyun’s collar, no longer sure of where the pink on Jonghyun’s skin came from the drink and where it came from the flush. He only realizes that he’s circling around nothing but staring at Jonghyun’s lips when Jonghyun clears his throat.

Jinki looks up, eyes wide when he meets Jonghyun’s expectant gaze. Jonghyun raises an eyebrow, and Jinki feels blood rush to his ears at the thought that he’s been caught. He hadn’t been thinking about kissing Jonghyun, not at all, but now that he thinks about it, he can’t help but notice how inviting they look—

What would Jonghyun do if he actually kissed him, in front of the customers?

Jinki yanks his hands away, afraid that his body might remember kissing and everything else they’ve done in private. He tosses the rags in the nearby trash and shakes out his handkerchief before throwing it over the counter to their bartender.

“You, um — all clean?”

Jonghyun looks at him with a smirk. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”

Not that Jonghyun should blame him for looking — it’s been over a week since they’d last gotten a chance to, since they’ve been too short on money to rent a room at the love hotel.

He misses it.

***

Jinki can split his time with Jonghyun into threes.

There’s the daytime — idle chat about videogames and manga and music — and there’s work, where they ride the border in-between — and then there’s _here,_ from the subway stop to his apartment, where there’s only silence and the glowing sign of the love hotel between them.

From the dingy entrance to the mattress with freshly perfumed sheets, Jonghyun’s chattiness evaporates into short questions and words — _is this good, lean back, your belt’s in the way_ — and Jinki’s still learning to speak, too, even if it’s only to answer — _yes, faster, let me._

More and more, he wants to break the quiet that traps them both and say something substantial to fit the way his chest seems to fill with enough warmth to burst when they’re in the rented room, only to empty when he drops Jonghyun off and walks home alone.

How he’ll say something, or what it’ll be, he’s not sure — still can’t find the words to fit everything, even in his own head — but it’s easy to start more of the same that had gotten him into this.

Reaching out, Jinki grabs Jonghyun from where he’s bending to find his shirt by the bed and pulls him until he stumbles and falls back to the mattress. The cheap springs protest under them when Jinki quickly swings a leg over Jonghyun to straddle him.

Jinki isn’t tipsy, not in the slightest, but the look Jonghyun is giving him is the same he gets when he challenges him to a race at three in the morning.

“We’re running out of time,” Jonghyun says, though his hands find Jinki’s hips.

“We have twenty minutes left.” Jinki smiles, the slow one he gives when he’s trying for a good tip, and rolls his hips. “One more?”

Jonghyun’s attention flicks down to the opening of Jinki’s thighs, and his cock twitches beneath them with interest, but his eyes are blank when they come up to meet Jinki’s. “We’re out of condoms.”

Jinki bites his lip, then scoots back. “I can just, you know…” he trails a hand over Jonghyun’s stomach to his hardening cock. It’s still slick with the lube Jonghyun applied to it before rolling on a condom, and the noise it gives when Jinki grips it from the base and tugs up is obscene and wet. “Yeah?”

The muscles in Jonghyun’s neck tense, but he lays his head back with a strained sound that falls between a sigh and a groan. “Y-yeah.”

A pleased smile pulls up Jinki’s lips, and he speeds up his hand, knowing it will likely take more than a few minutes to get Jonghyun off when he’s already come once. Jonghyun swears at the pace, but pushes into it, one hand yanking at his own hair as the other grasps at the sheets.

“F-fuck, Jinki.”

It’s the first time Jonghyun’s said his name past the threshold of the hotel, and Jinki feels some part of his heart latch onto it. With only a slight stutter in rhythm, he leans forward on his other arm so he can watch Jonghyun’s mouth fall open when he tightens his grip. There’s a telltale twitch in his hand, and then Jonghyun jolts, body stiffening suddenly with pleasure.

The bliss on Jonghyun’s face when he comes makes him slow his hand. He squeezes gently and twists, milking it out to enjoy the warmth that coats his palm more and more on every stroke and the way Jonghyun’s brow furrows with every twitch of his hips.

Jonghyun blinks up at the ceiling, blind to the world, and Jinki feels a million flowers bloom to his chest.

“Shit.” Jonghyun scoops up his pants in a hurry, tugging them on quickly. “We have to hurry.”

One eye on Jonghyun, Jinki collects his clothes slowly, unable to help the bitterness that sneaks into his question. “Why the rush? You have a date or something?”

“No. Just don’t want to get charged extra,” Jonghyun says.

The protest that _he_ thinks it’d be worth it is right on the tip of Jinki’s tongue, but he bites it back. He doesn’t know what Jonghyun would make of it.

Unable to do anything else, Jinki dresses in silence. His throat tightens when they walk through the hotel’s hall and out into the street, and by the time they’re at the block where they normally split, he’s afraid it might close entirely if he doesn’t get something out.

Seeing the back of Jonghyun’s jacket forces something out of him, and he finds his mouth opening before he can think of what he means to say.

“Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun turns to him, eyes unreadable in the scant light from the nearest streetlamp, but Jinki can see the questioning tilt of his head. Jinki swallows. “I—” he pauses. “Thanks for tonight.”

The motion of Jonghyun’s shrug is nearly lost under the bulk of his jacket. “Think I got more out of it than you.”

Jinki laughs. It sounds hollow, and Jonghyun eyes him oddly when it ends, forcing him to continue. “I don’t know about that — I enjoyed it.”

“Well, I’m glad.” Jonghyun smiles. It’s neither the smirk he wears sometimes in the love hotel, when he has Jinki moaning, or the boyish one he gives at work — there’s tension in it, a tightness that doesn’t belong on Jonghyun’s features, and just seeing it is enough to make Jinki regret speaking at all.

“I should get home,” Jinki says quickly. “It’s late.” He shivers when a breeze slips through the street. “And cold.”

“It is,” Jonghyun agrees. “Night then, Jinki.”

“Night.” Jinki nods once, then forces himself to turn and walk away.

The empty feeling is back, worse now that he’d tried to abate it with conversation. He glances over his shoulder, half-expecting to see Jonghyun looking back at him. He only realizes that’d been more of a hope than an expectation when it goes unfulfilled.

***

A few weeks later, they reach the point where the love hotel is just another expected stop on their way back from work. When they cross the street towards the glowing pink sign, Jonghyun heads right for the door, and Jinki follows him, even though his sureness of this arrangement — if it’s even worth that word — diminishes each time they come.

His hesitation must be obvious, because this time Jonghyun stops with his hand on the rusted handle. “Do you want to, tonight?”

Jinki shakes his head, and for a moment, the corners of Jonghyun’s mouth twitch downward with poorly concealed disappointment.  
  
“No, I mean — my roommate’s gone,” Jinki says quickly, an answer to a question Jonghyun didn’t ask. "Figured we’d save the money and go to my place.”  
  
“Ah.”

Jinki isn’t sure if that’s a rejection or a confirmation, so he fixes his scarf and asks, “Is that…alright?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Jonghyun says.  
  
Jinki nods. “Let’s go, then.”

By now, he knows better than to expect actual conversation out of Jonghyun after they near the love hotel, but it still disappoints him when he has to pull words from him just to figure out what they’re doing to do. Eyes on the dark sidewalk, he puts one foot forward, then the other, waiting until he hears Jonghyun’s footfalls behind him to resume their previous pace. He’s so used to walking home alone, he half-expects Jonghyun to change his mind when they reach the street where they usually split ways. But a block after they pass it, Jonghyun is still beside him, keeping pace with his eyes fixed straight ahead.

The reach Jinki’s apartment complex minutes later. He’s lived here for over a year, but it feels unfamiliar now, and he fumbles through the deep pockets of his coat for his apartment keys. Again, he realizes this is something Jonghyun usually leads in — he’s always the one carrying the hotel keycard — and he feels lost on where this would fit in their usual routine of _enter-fuck-leave_ when he opens the door for them both.

Jinki gathers his nerves as they toe off their shoes. Hopefully Jonghyun won’t turn and run when he suggests starting with something other than sex.

“I realize you’ve never been over to my apartment before,” Jinki says, and closes the door behind them. “I have a pretty good TV and movie selection — you want to watch something while you’re here?”

“Sure.” Jonghyun answers him without looking up from unbuttoning his jacket. “Sounds good.”

Moving over to the shelf, Jinki grabs the first Korean movie he sees and pushes it into the player. He turns around to the couch, meaning to invite Jonghyun to join him, only to see he’s already there. Already there, _and_ stripped down from his uniform’s button-up to the thin t-shirt he wears underneath.

Jinki swallows.  
  
Belatedly, he realizes that watching a movie is a common prelude to sex.  
  
He forces himself to act as if nothing is going to happen when he joins Jonghyun on the couch.

The opening credits trail by in a blur. Even though he had picked it out, he barely knows what movie they’re watching — if what he’s doing could be considered watching. All he’s thinking of is the inches of space between them, and what might come later.

He doesn’t have to wait long. They’re only thirty minutes into the film when Jinki feels a hand cover his knee. Unsure what to do, he tenses — is he supposed to pretend not to notice, or acknowledge it as some kind of foreplay?

Jonghyun gives him no time to wonder. Jonghyun’s hand shifts higher, leaving a trail of heat behind his palm until he reaches Jinki’s thigh and squeezes. Jinki straightens, breathing through his nose to keep back a moan. Jonghyun leans towards Jinki, using his other hand enough to pull down the wide collar of his sweater and kiss his shoulder, and Jinki has a half-beat to think of how strange and newly intimate that feels before Jonghyun swings a leg over him and straddles his lap.

His gasp at the sudden shift is swallowed by a warm pair of lips. Jonghyun’s hands find their place in his hair, tugging his head back to reveal the sensitive pulse point Jonghyun’s learned to exploit all those times in the hotel room. The slight swell in Jonghyun’s jeans pushes against his stomach, and he instinctively arches against it until his mind catches up with him.

Jinki stops Jonghyun with hands on his chest. “N-not here. It’d be weird, since my roommate uses the couch too.”

“Oh.“ Jonghyun stares at him blankly. “Are we going to at all, or…?”

“Yeah, I—” Jinki clears his throat. “Sorry. My bedroom’s the room behind us.”

Jonghyun climbs off him and stands, letting Jinki lead the way to his room. With a quick motion, he flicks on the lights and spares a moment to thank himself for clearing his room of its usual magazine-and-soda-can debris. He’d even folded up and stored his futon instead of shoving it into the corner, leaving the floors entirely bare save the small fan he keeps for summer.

Jonghyun stares at the open floor space. “…You don’t have a bed?”

“I, uh — have a futon?” Jinki says. “That alright?”

Jonghyun nods, and Jinki rushes to the closet. Jinki fumbles with the futon as he pulls it out, cheeks burning as he unfolds the it and gathers the rest of his bedding to lay them over the floor.

It all feels so _deliberate._ Somehow, it was easier to fuck in a strange room used by dozens of other strangers than in his own home. The thought makes a short laugh escape from his throat — as if having Jonghyun over was somehow more deliberate than booking a room for three hours just so they could fuck — but it is.

Jonghyun shifts uncomfortably. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing.” Jinki stiffens. “Just a passing thought.”

Jinki’s lights are brighter than the dim mood lighting of the love hotel’s rooms. He watches Jonghyun peel his shirt off, wondering how his skin can look just as attractive under the glaring yellow bulbs as the warm and gentle reds. There are moles he hadn’t noticed on his arms, and a fine trail of hair he’d more felt than seen when he’d run his hands over Jonghyun’s stomach.

The urge to do that again is strong, and he reaches out to Jonghyun, placing a palm flat on the bare skin above his jeans. Jonghyun’s shirt falls to the floor quietly, and he looks down, a bit of his usual smirk on his lips. “Eager?”

“Yes,” Jinki breathes, surprised at the rasp in his own voice. To prove it, he unclasps the button of Jonghyun’s jeans for him and tugs them down, pressing his face against the seam of Jonghyun’s boxers.

Jonghyun hisses through his teeth. His eyes are still cast down, and Jinki meets them as he opens his mouth, cheeks heating with a mix of want and awareness of what he must look like when he takes Jonghyun into his mouth and slips his lips over the head. He sucks until Jonghyun pulls him off by his hair, then lifts his head to meet Jonghyun’s lips when he slips onto his knees and pushes him back onto the futon.

They have a routine now. Jinki’s legs open thoughtlessly as Jonghyun crawls between them, and his hands find Jonghyun’s back, hips coming up to press for friction before he realizes it feels off.

He wants Jonghyun taking him. Likes it. But this already feels different, doing it here, and he wants something new to deepen the difference in his memories.

“You think we could try something else?”

“...Like what?” 

“Switching?” Jinki says. His breath stops when Jonghyun’s eyes snap to him, almost guarded, and Jinki waits for him to speak.

“Alright,” Jonghyun answers finally. “You have lube?”

Red-faced, Jinki nods and moves out from under him to grab the bottle from its nook under the desk. He’d bought some the day after the first time Jonghyun had fucked him, so he could recreate the feeling himself at home.

It doesn’t compare — not at all — but it’s something to carry him over the nights before they have the money and time to book a room again.

He slicks his fingers up and pushes them in, mind swimming at the heat of Jonghyun around him. Jinki wonders if he felt this tight the first time, or if it’s always this way.

The futon lifts off of the floor at the edges from the strength of Jonghyun’s tugging, and Jinki hears it _thump_ loudly back onto the wood when he twists his fingers. “Ready soon?”

Jonghyun shakes his head, and Jinki nods, leaning forward to avoid cramping his wrist as he stretches out his fingers. It takes a few minutes more, and then Jonghyun’s spread-legged and panting when Jinki finally has three fingers in him up to the knuckle.

His nails scramble across the back of Jinki’s neck to make sure he has his attention. “Condoms?”  
  
“Yeah, let me get them.” Pulling his fingers out, Jinki crawls to the duffle bag a few feet away under his desk and unzips it quickly, shuffling through wrinkled clothes and stray papers. He knows he saw some in there the last time he packed.

Finally, he finds a box at the bottom and rips it open to pull out a strip. After a quick check of the expiration dates, he tears one off. Jonghyun glances away from him the moment he returns to the futon, and he’s left on his own to open the packet and roll it on.

Jonghyun’s legs are already open, and Jinki gets on his knees between them, resting one hand on his leg for balance when he bends down to line himself up. The edge of the futon slips closer as Jonghyun’s fingers tense, and his chest is still with a held breath when he nods.

“Fuck.” Jinki’s teeth bite into his lip as he sinks inside. He can already feel a layer of sweat forming at every point his skin meets Jonghyun’s, at the palm he has over his thigh and the fingers hooked under his shoulder.

Jonghyun’s cock presses against his stomach when he finally lays over him, twitching hotly and leaving a sticky spot of precome right between his ribs.

Trying not to just flatten himself over Jonghyun and rut against him is a challenge, but he wants to make this good — wants to last at least half as long as Jonghyun does for him.

He pulls himself back slowly, watching Jonghyun’s lashes flutter, then pushes in to watch his eyes crinkle at the corners when he draws a sharp breath.

Though they’d done so much in the hotel, he’d never imagined he could have Jonghyun underneath him like this in his bed. He runs his hands everywhere he can manage while still rolling his hips, and Jonghyun shivers into his touch, hands curling and uncurling in short bursts as he tries to take in the sensations. Jinki tucks his head down against his neck and bites, determining quickly he wants to suck a mark onto his skin when he feels Jonghyun jolt at the first press of his teeth.

“Jinki.” His name is gritted out like a curse as Jonghyun’s nails dig into his biceps. Jinki fucks him harder, hoping his fingers will tighten enough to leave marks, just in case Jonghyun doesn’t stay the night.

Under him, Jonghyun shifts, and knuckles bump against Jinki’s stomach, clumsy for a short moment before they find a fast rhythm that makes his whole body heat with the realization that he’s feeling Jonghyun jerk himself off. He’s losing control of his hips already, speeding and slowing in turns as he tries to cope with losing his senses to a blur of pleasure.

He doesn’t last long. The hand Jonghyun still has on him grips tighter, and then his head is thrown back and his back is arching against the pillow and Jinki _feels_ it when he comes — there’s a sticky warmth between them and he tenses, forcing Jinki over the edge with him.

After that, everything slows. He untangles from Jonghyun long enough to pull off the condom and toss it in the nearby bin, then lays back on the futon without wiping himself off, not even caring that he’ll have to air it out the next day. Jonghyun is still on his back, panting heavily, and Jinki takes the chance to sling a leg over his and press against him for warmth.

He should have known by now that Jonghyun doesn’t do cuddling. The second he gets comfortable, Jonghyun seems to realize what they’re doing and stiffens. Jinki tightens his hold, hoping to tell Jonghyun without words he doesn’t want him to go.

“I’m going to clean up,” Jonghyun says in answer to the squeeze of his fingers.

“Oh. Right.” Jinki pulls his hand away and watches Jonghyun slip out of the futon and stand.

Jonghyun flicks the light off when he leaves, and Jinki is alone in his futon. He tries not to think, afraid of the direction his thoughts will go with Jonghyun in his apartment and only in the next room, but he can’t help it.

Is Jonghyun going to stay the night? Or is he going to walk back alone?

A few minutes later, Jonghyun returns. He checks the time on his phone, then sighs and pulls on his boxers before slipping under the futon covers. “It’s nearly four in the morning. Is it alright if I stay here till sunup, at least?”

“Y-yeah, of course.” Jinki hopes it’s too dark for his smile to be seen, because he’s sure it looks stupid. “Stay as long as you need, my roommate will be gone for a few days. We definitely need rest after all that work.”

Jonghyun laughs softly in agreement. Jinki’s stomach does a funny swooping sensation, and he has to fight the urge to reach out and tug Jonghyun closer. Jonghyun turns away from him and sighs, a long tired one that signals he’s going to try and sleep.

Jinki closes his eyes and waits for his consciousness to fade. He should be able to sleep, easy — especially after sex. He’s exhausted from work. And he’d always _wanted_ to sleep, in those three-hour rooms, after Jonghyun had fucked him and he was bone-tired. But he waits, and after what feels like a long while, he still can’t, even though he’s wanted to share a bed with Jonghyun for ages.

Jonghyun’s breath is too loud to allow him sleep. Or, not _loud_ , but impossible not to notice — and he keeps listening to it, waiting for it to steady and slow with no relief.

The scent of Jonghyun’s shampoo is impossible to escape as well. And the scent of his bodywash. And the sight of the nape of his neck in the dark, a place Jinki hasn’t yet kissed because he’s the only one of them that’s ever bent over when they—

His heart thuds, a heavy beat in his chest filled with want. He shifts his feet once under the sheets, crossing and uncrossing his ankles, trying to rid himself of the restlessness that urges him to find out what Jonghyun’s back would feel like against his lips.

“You still up?”

He jolts at the sudden question. Though he’d guessed Jonghyun was awake, he didn’t think he’d speak.

They usually don’t, in whatever room they’ve fucked in.

“Yeah,” Jinki answers to cut that thought short. “Having trouble sleeping, for some reason.”

“Me too,” Jonghyun says with a long sigh. “Though I usually do. Insomnia and all that.”

“Mm.” Jinki tries to remember what Jonghyun had said helped. Something about warmth on his stomach?

Trying to find it under the covers, Jinki reaches out ends up placing a hand on Jonghyun’s side. He tenses under his fingers. “What’re you doing?”

“I, uh — the warm stomach thing?” Jink licks his lips. “To help you sleep. I think you said something about that once.”

“Ah, yeah. I think I did.”

That’s the only acknowledgement he gets, and neither of them have moved. Jonghyun’s hand still hovers indecisively in front of Jinki’s, not pushing him back, but just in place to keep him from reaching around him fully.

“…So I thought I’d help.” Jinki offers to break the silence, wondering why he always has to be the one to break it. He wiggles his fingers against Jonghyun’s ribs

“Okay.” Jonghyun reaches back, grasps his hand fully, and pulls his arm over his waist. “Just…like this.” Jinki scoots closer until the tip of his nose is against Jonghyun’s neck. The thin and sharp scent from Jonghyun’s shampoo makes him sigh, and he nestles closer against him, until they’re sharing one pillow instead of the two Jinki had laid out for them.

As close as they’re pressed together, he expected a moment of tension, or at least a struggle to remind their bodies they meant to sleep and not do what they usually do with this proximity.

But there’s none. It’s just warm, and Jinki spends only a moment more trying to keep his eyes open before giving in to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

“I helped myself to making some rice, and already set out some kimchi.” Jonghyun gestures at the bag next to him on the counter. He’s clad in the same clothes he had worn yesterday, and his hair is as tidy as Jinki guesses he could manage without a comb. “I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” Jinki says, beaming broadly.

“There’s some for you in the rice cooker.” he tilts his head towards it. “I thought you might want some, but wasn’t sure when you’d be up, so I made a big serving. I couldn’t find any soup, though.”

“I—” Jinki blinks, then moves to the rice cooker. As Jonghyun had said, there’s extra rice waiting for him. “Thanks.”

Jonghyun eats his breakfast in silence, reading the single book he had brought in his workbag as Jinki flips on the TV. He watches the rice disappear from Jonghyun’s bowl with a sense of dread, expecting him to gather his things and leave, but Jonghyun lingers for the weather report.

That gives Jinki enough time to catch his eye while his mouth lingers over the tips of his chopsticks. Jonghyun catches the hint, and even though there’s light peeking through the small window, he tilts his head towards the bedroom in question.

  
They don’t leave the apartment for three days.   
  
Jinki has enough food, and there’s delivery for dinner. At first, Jonghyun had seemed wary about staying more than night, but Jinki plies him with movies and snacks until Jonghyun is comfortable enough to steal some of his clothes.

Jinki learns that his shower can fit two people — _uncomfortably_ fit — but it’s still worth it. Jonghyun’s hair looks entirely different wet, and the ability to quickly rinse away any mess means he finally gets to know what it feels like to have Jonghyun’s come across his chest.

The way Jinki’s loose shirt clings to Jonghyun’s still-damp skin after is another bonus. Jinki has trouble taking his eyes away from him when they finally return to the living room, and he barely registers that Jonghyun is looking through his games until he speaks.

“I didn’t realize you had this fighter,” Jonghyun says, lifting the case. “I’ve never played it before.”

“R-really?” Jinki takes a moment to reorient himself to speaking with _friend_ Jonghyun instead of _pressing-him-against-the-shower-door_ Jonghyun. “I thought you’d be into those games.”

“I’m into the main series, but this was a spinoff.” Jonghyun shrugs. “Can we try it out?”

“I’m never going to argue against playing video games,” Jinki says, swiping the case from Jonghyun’s hands to take the disc. He slides it in and joins Jonghyun on the floor.

The free space is small, and their knees bump together when he crosses his legs. His fingers move on their own through the menus to a two-player match, nerves and mind abuzz from the small contact.

Maybe he could bet something. Something related to what they did the other night. Or the shower…

“Do you not have a character you main, or what?” Jonghyun looks over at him, one brow raised. “I’m waiting on you to pick so we can get this fight started.”

“Right, sorry.” Jinki scrolls through his options and settles on the character he plays the least, an idol girl with pigtails that fights with a microphone stand. If he wins by only a short margin in the first match, Jonghyun will underestimate him when he changes characters later. Which would make it easy to win the bet.

He shoots Jonghyun a grin. “Sorry. I’m just looking forward to kicking your ass.”

Jonghyun rolls his eyes and picks a stage the moment the game lets him. “We’ll see. I’ve played other fighters from this developer before.”

“Not the same as owning the game,” Jinki retorts, and is ignored. Jonghyun’s teeth are already in his lip in concentration, attention fully on the screen as the announcer counts down to the beginning to the match.

Jinki sends his character forward right at zero, only to be blocked and countered with perfect timing. Jonghyun lets out a shout and leans forward, fingers pressing the buttons of his controller in rapid rhythms that force Jinki to retreat.

He swears when a charged-up attack knocks his character instantly down to a quarter health. He’d underestimated how similar the other fighting games Jonghyun played were to this one. He tries to catch up, but his guards are useless, falling repeatedly under the cleverly-timed combos Jonghyun somehow is picking up on the fly.

“So much for all that bragging earlier, huh?” Jonghyun is grinning, wide and proud from his imminent victory, and just seeing it from the corner of Jinki’s eye is enough to make his heart skip a beat. The round ends with Jonghyun’s character gloating blatantly at the camera, and the smile Jonghyun sends him is so blinding Jinki forgets there’s always a round two.

Jinki leans over and kisses him.

Jonghyun’s smile instantly fades, but he kisses back. His lips move against Jinki’s, his tongue teases, and his hands find Jinki’s sides, but his eyes are different — the mirth in them is gone, replaced with something darker and distant that hurts even as it sends a thrill up Jinki’s spine because he recognizes it from when Jonghyun fucks him into the mattress.

Jinki frowns. This isn’t what he wanted. He wanted to kiss Jonghyun while he smiled.

He pulls back, twisting his head away from the soft tug of Jonghyun’s fingers.

Jonghyun’s lips twitch. “Why’d you stop? Do we need to move to your bedroom?”

“No.” Jinki bites his lip. He doesn’t know how to put it, so he blurts out the first question that comes to mind. “Why do you get so distant during sex?”

Immediately, Jinki knows that was the wrong thing to say. Jonghyun’s mouth tightens the moment hears the question, and he looks away, eyes on the unmoving fan in the corner.

A long silence passes. Eventually, Jonghyun speaks. “It’s just sex.”

“But what if…” Jinki stops, hovers around the words, because he’s still afraid of what they mean even for just his own sake. “What if it’s not? To me?”

Jonghyun stares at him, still blank, and Jinki hates that look enough that he continues even though he’s sure he’s making a fool of himself now. At least telling the truth might get a reaction out of him.

“I mean, what if I want _more_ than just sex?”

“You don’t,” Jonghyun answers without pause.

Jinki glares at him, pulse thrumming with anger at the casual dismissal of something that had taken him so long to voice. “You can’t tell me what I want.”

“I know you don’t want to be disowned, considering you’re here to study for your family business.” Jonghyun lifts his chin. His steely expression falters. “And the chances of your family being okay with it…of _anyone_ being okay with it…”

“I’ll worry about that later,” Jinki says. “Because you still haven’t really answered my question.”

Jonghyun huffs. “Which one?”

“The ‘what if I want more than that’ one. And the ‘why are you so distant’ one, because your answer was half-assed,” Jinki says. “And…though I haven’t asked it, not directly, but I wonder…what do you want?”

“Wanting more than than sex just isn’t…a good idea. Not with me, especially. You could have something more simple than this.” Jonghyun sighs. “And I’m distant for all the cliche reasons — it’s what I’m used to, you’re new to this, I don’t want to be that invested when you wake up and realize you’d have an easier time with a girl.”

Jinki nods, then pushes. “And what you want?”

“I…” Jonghyun tenses, as if this question were the hardest. “I like being with you. I like you as a friend, and I like having sex with you. There’s more than that, too, if I’m being honest with myself, but…” He bites his lip guiltily. “It makes me nervous.”

“Because you’re not sure about it?”

“It’s…hard to be sure about anything.” Jonghyun hesitates. “But no. It’s more like…I never got the impression that you liked men before. It’s hard not to worry it’s just a passing interest for you.”

“I get that,” Jinki says. “I’ll be honest — I really didn’t think about men at all until you said you were gay. I mean, I found them attractive, I think? I just…didn’t think about it as a possibility, so I never pursued the thought.”

Jonghyun stares at him, eyes wide with interest, and Jinki takes that as a sign to continue.

“But now, I…know myself differently. I wouldn’t have figured it out without you, so I get how that would make you nervous…sometimes it makes me nervous.” Jinki sighs. “I know I like men now, and I think we’ve had sex enough times for me to be sure I like sleeping with them — even if the only man I’ve ever slept with is you, and you’re exceptionally good in bed.”

That finally gets Jonghyun to look up at him. He tries a small smile, and Jonghyun exhales in what sounds like a laugh. “How do you see this working, then? If we’re both scared?”

“I don’t know,” Jinki admits. “But…I want to find out. Don’t you?”

Jonghyun hesitates. “You think it’s worth it?”

“I do,” Jinki says, unable to help a small smile. He wants Jonghyun. The more he thinks about it, and the more it seems like a possibility, the more sure of that he is. “Plus, like you said, we already know we’re good friends. I think we’ll make a good couple.”

The word sends a flush to Jonghyun’s cheeks like nothing they’ve done in the bedroom has. Avoiding eye contact again, he picks at a thread on the couch. “So…I guess we’re dating, then?”

“Guess so.” Jinki grins and slips his hand over, heard thudding when it covers Jonghyun’s.  “I’ll even take you on a date, if you want. To make it official.”

Jonghyun looks up at him, wide-eyed, as the offer sinks in. Eventually, he closes his eyes and laughs again, but this time the hesitant smile that follows sticks around. “That sounds nice, I think.”

***

The narrow streets leading to Jonghyun’s apartment tunnel the spring wind, which is doing a wonderful job of ruining Jinki’s confidence in his outfit.

Jinki grimaces and tugs at the fabric of his shirt, smoothing out the collar again until it feels flat under his fingers. He’d spent too long ironing it to let that go to waste.

It’s silly, that this is nerve-wracking, while going to a rented room with Jonghyun was easy, even after he’d started to want more than sex. But he supposes that makes sense — he knows Jonghyun likes fucking him, but he doesn’t know how much Jonghyun likes him. He must, on some level, since he agreed to the date, but still — there are differences in being together.

Jinki’s studying business. Jonghyun’s studying literature. Half their jokes are butting heads against each other, and Jinki isn’t sure how that’ll carry into romance, because it’s nothing like any relationship he’s had.

But the fact that Jinki wants him despite all that unsureness has to count for _something._ He presses the doorbell outside Jonghyun’s apartment and waits.

“Hey,” he smiles.

Jonghyun’s lips tilt up in a crooked smile. “Hey.”

“You, uh…” Jinki hesitates — Jonghyun looks good, in his t-shirt and jeans, but he’s not sure how to put it in words, and all that comes out in its place is a stupid question. “You ready?”

“Yeah.” Jonghyun steps outside and locks the door behind him, then turns to Jinki. Staying just close enough to make it obvious , he scuffs his sneakers against the ground. “So, you said you had a plan. Where are we going?”

“I thought we’d stop by that giant bookstore on the other end of the city you’ve always wanted to visit,” Jinki says. “And there’s a game shop nearby. We can pick something out on the way back to play at my place, since my roommate’s gone again on another ocean study.”

“The one with the whole floor of art books?” Jonghyun’s eyes light up. “I keep getting so absorbed in what literature I need to read I forgot all about it.”

“I know, that’s why I thought I’d bring you there,” Jinki says, feeling proud of himself when Jonghyun smiles up at him. He leans forward, and Jonghyun tenses, looking left and right down the hallway.

Jinki frowns. “Should I not?”

“Maybe not?” Jonghyun apologizes. “Later?”

“Yeah.” Jinki frowns and pulls back.

For a first date, it’s a poor start to one. They leave the apartment complex in silence, Jonghyun with another unreadable expression and Jinki trying rationalize away his disappointment. Jonghyun would know better than him whether or not it’s a good idea. He’s not one to enjoy affection in public, but having to keep himself from kissing Jonghyun even outside his door is hard to bear.

But the alternative — not getting to be with Jonghyun at all, except behind closed doors — is worse.

When they reach the subway station, he buys two passes with a smile to try and alleviate the mood. Jonghyun takes his with a guilty frown, and Jinki decides to risk teasing him the same way he used to when they were only friends. “I’m not trying to make you the girl, I promise.”

Jonghyun rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile tugging up his lips. “Please. I know you mostly dated older women for a reason. If you meant to treat me like you treat girls, _I’d_ be paying for everything.”

Jinki laughs and ushers them through the rest of the station. There’s already a sea of people clogging up the queues, and Jinki doesn’t think of it as anything other than a good excuse to hold onto Jonghyun’s shirt until he hears someone mention that tomorrow is the start of Golden Week.

“Somehow, I forgot it was a holiday weekend,” Jinki mutters as they’re shoved inside the subway car by the press of bodies behind them. “Maybe a date with so much public transportation wasn’t the best idea.”

“Mm.” The noise isn’t an approval, or a disapproval, leaving him unsure what to make of it. He purses his lips, hoping Jonghyun will still have fun once they’re there, and tries not to worry as the subway car begins to roll forward.

Somewhere between the press of suitcases and backpacks and purses, a hand brushes against his.

Thinking it’s a stranger’s, he starts to apologize in Japanese before he looks down and sees that Jonghyun is blushing.

_Oh._

He takes it, squeezes, and leans forward around someone to make sure Jonghyun can see his smile. “Maybe crowds aren’t so bad?”

Jonghyun returns it, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Maybe not.”


End file.
